


Batman Gets a Clue

by arysteia



Category: The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)
Genre: Families of Choice, Gen, Just Heroes Being Pals, M/M, Orphans Thermidor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-16 12:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/pseuds/arysteia
Summary: Tough on crime, easy on the eyes.  Lego Batman may be the World's Greatest Detective, but does he know the secrets of his own heart?





	Batman Gets a Clue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_Ganesh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/gifts).



> For Lady_Ganesh. I loved your prompts, and tried to cover as many as I could. Happy Holidays.

"It was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the candlestick," Bruce said, tossing down his cards with a flourish. "I'M BATMAN!"

Dick ducked his theatrically outflung arm, and looked suspiciously at his own cards.

"Master Bruce, that's not how you make an accusation," Alfred said sternly.

"But I'm Batman."

"Nonetheless, Sir," Alfred insisted. "According to the rules, you are supposed to record your guess on your notes and then confirm silently by opening the envelope, so as not to spoil the game for others."

"I don't _guess_ ," Bruce said. "I'm Batman."

"Well, I'm afraid you're wrong in this case, Sir."

"No, I'm not, I'm Batman."

"You may be Batman," Alfred said, "but I have Colonel Mustard."

He held up one of his cards, face forward, and sure enough it featured the disembodied head of a ruddy faced, moustachioed gentleman, awkwardly positioned over a yellow counter.

"And I have the candlestick," Dick said, showing his own card. "You should have asked a few more questions, Dad."

"I don't need to ask questions," Bruce said, looking at the now scattered pieces on the board with betrayal. "I'm Batman. I'm the World's Greatest Detective. I used my powers of deduction. Doctor Black was having an affair with Miss Scarlett. Colonel Mustard loved her. The motive was clearly jealousy. No one else had reason to murder a simple country doctor."

"Bruce," Alfred sighed. "That's not how you play Cluedo."

"Fine." Bruce picked up his cards.

Alfred and Dick immediately started crossing names off the lists on their notes. Dick, in particular, had more red ink than print on his.

Bruce looked at his own untouched notes. What would drive a cook, or a curate, or an absent minded professor, to kill? Absent any additional clues he was stumped.

"I'm going to get a drink," he said, standing up. His elbow accidentally hit the edge of the board and sent the remaining cards and pieces flying. "Whoops. Butterfingers."

"Yes," Alfred said, looking at him sadly. "If there's one word I would use to describe you, Sir, it would be 'butterfingers'."

"Bat butter," Dick muttered under his breath.

Alfred stifled a laugh.

"What?" Bruce demanded. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, Sir," Alfred said. "Just a little cricketing humour."

"I have ears like a bat!" Bruce said, feeling oddly stung. He should have known they hadn't _really_ understood when he chose to spend five days staking out a warehouse on the Gotham waterfront, rather than watching the Ashes test on the giant screen in the media room with them. Five days! For a game that ended in a draw! "And I have catlike reflexes!" He jumped into the air, executing a flawless spinning axe kick.

"We _know_ , Sir," Alfred said, shaking his head in disappointment. He turned to Dick, who had finished packing up the game. "Would you like to join me in the kitchen for a hot chocolate, young Master?"

"Yes, please, Alfred," Dick said, and the two of them disappeared to the kitchen without a backward glance.

"I guess I'll go on patrol then," Bruce called after them.

There was no reply.

* * *

He told Superman about it the next day while they were getting changed after a sparring session on the Watchtower. Batman could have won easily, of course, but he'd been making more of an effort to get along with Superman since the whole fiasco with the Fortress of Solitude break in and the Phantom Zone projector theft, so he'd let him have it.

"It does sound kind of like you did it on purpose," Superman said, unhelpfully.

That was so typical of him, Kansas goody two shoes that he was. He really did still feel like Batman's nemesis a lot of the time.

"But family games nights can be intense," Superman went on. "I know sometimes on the farm-"

"Oh, spare me your tales of agrarian idylls," Bruce said, regretting having brought the matter up. They should have just sparred another round.

"I just meant I'd be happy to come out to the Manor one weekend," Superman said. "Provide a bit of an outside perspective. Maybe it would do us some good too, to spend time together, outside work."

"We're _work_ friends," Bruce said.

"Oh." Now Superman looked hurt too. "Right."

"Fine," Bruce sighed. "If you're going to be a sad sack about it. I don't want another incident like with the Joker. You can come next time."

"Great. I love Clue," Superman said.

"It's Cluedo," Bruce said. "We play by Alfred's rules."

Superman laughed. "The butler did it?"

"Of course not," Bruce said. "At least I hope not. If Alfred turned to a life of crime he'd probably get away with it."

"True," Superman agreed. "Hey, while we're scheduling, there's a couple of new heroes who've just applied to join the League and I've invited them to the Fortress for dinner. Do you want to come?"

"What? No," said Bruce. "Why would I come to the Fortress to eat poorly synthesised Kryptonian fell beast when Alfred makes me lobster thermidor exactly the way I like it every night?"

Superman looked disappointed. Or disapproving. It was hard to tell on his stern, square jawed face. "You can't eat lobster thermidor every night for the rest of your life, Bruce," he said.

"Yes," Bruce said. "Yes, I can."

"Bruce."

"Fine!" Bruce conceded gracefully. Never let it be said that Alfred had not taught him impeccable manners. "I will come to your stupid ice palace and eat your Kryptonian "delicacies" with your new friends whose applications to join my crimefighting organisation you never even ran past me."

"Great," Superman said. "Friday, 7pm. Bring a bottle of wine."

" _Fine_."

* * *

Dick barged into the dressing room while Bruce was getting changed.

"You're going on a date?" he asked, clearly excited.

"What? No!"

"It'd be cool if you were," Dick said, leaping up onto the dresser. "I kind of liked having Batman as my second dad. Superman would be an okay substitute."

"Superman is no kind of substitute," Bruce said.

"Of course not," Dick agreed. "What are you going to wear?"

"My suit."

Dick frowned. "You can't wear your suit on a date."

"It's not a date," Bruce insisted. Why did everyone he spoke to seem to wilfully misunderstand? Alfred had made the same mistake. "It's a work dinner at the Fortress of Solitude. We're interviewing new prospects for the Justice League. I don't even know their names."

In hindsight that was probably a lapse on his part, but he'd been busy all week trying to master the arcane rules of cricket in time for the next test. If his father figure and crimefighting partner slash son were seriously committed to a "sport" that included tea breaks and cucumber sandwiches, so be it, and nothing so esoteric as short third man, fine leg, or even silly mid off would defeat the Batman.

Thankfully, when he arrived at the Fortress with a Chateau Margaux 79 under his arm, Superman opened the door in costume. It was good to be able to rely on him like that.

He followed him in and sat down at the table, which was meticulously set for four, but had an incongruous sheaf of birds of paradise arranged in a vase at its centre. Superman's ideas on interior design were a very odd mix of Krypton, Kansas, and 1980s Metropolis. Fortunately the doorbell rang before Bruce had to compliment the decor. At least the newcomers were punctual.

Superman walked back in, two costumed superheroes following close behind him. One was even taller than he was, and wearing a form fitting white and gold bodysuit. The other…

Batman stood up and glared at him.

The man glared back.

He was wearing an utterly ridiculous black leather coat over black combat pants and a black pullover, and heavy black boots with _very_ thick soles that were clearly compensating for a perceived height difference. It was altogether too much black. The only contrast feature was the sickle moon on his chest, which, now Bruce looked more closely, matched the sunburst on his partner's. There were no ears on his cowl, at least, or Bruce would have had to call Wayne Industries' very gifted trademark attorneys.

"All right, you two," the man in white said, with a wide, open mouthed smile that was somehow even warmer and more friendly than Superman's. "Enough posturing."

Batman glared at him too.

"Open the wine, B," Superman said, nudging Bruce in the side.

He sighed and did so while Superman introduced the newcomers and gave a brief rundown of their power sets.

The blond one called himself Apollo, which was fitting given his glowing halo and generally sunny demeanour, but a little on the nose, and also somewhat redundant given there was already a perfectly adequate hyperclass solar powered metahuman in the room. The other one was called Midnighter. He was more cagey about his powers but seemed to be augmented rather than naturally enhanced. He referred to a "computer" several times, and his fingers often twitched towards the billy clubs in his belt. It was hard to see what they would bring to the League that wasn't already covered, but Superman seemed to like them for some reason.

"I'll sort out some rooms for you on the Watchtower," Superman said at last, after they had eaten a tolerable filet mignon followed by an apple pie that was recognisably Mrs Kent's blue ribbon winning one from the Kansas State Fair. Not that Bruce paid attention to that sort of thing.

"Thanks," Apollo said. He and Superman were already on their way to becoming fast friends. Typical. "We only need one."

"There are more than enough rooms," Bruce said. "No one needs a roommate." Not everyone could be lucky enough to live in a centuries old ancestral manor, but no superhero should have to live like they were in college, either, and he had spent a lot of time and money getting the Watchtower just perfect.

Midnighter snorted rudely. His manners were terrible. It was hard to imagine what Apollo saw in him as a friend.

"Don't mind him," Superman said, grinning. "He's not very observant. One it is."

Whatever.

* * *

The pieces fell into place when Dick came home from a school trip to Opal City the next week, raving about a new friend he'd made called Jenny, and asking if they could join her family on a camping trip during the summer vacation. Roughing it in the woods was the last thing Bruce wanted to do when he could be sleeping on ten thousand thread count Egyptian cotton sheets in his king size Batmobile shaped bed, but he had begun to feel bad about the Cluedo debacle, not helped by Alfred's continued head shakes when he thought Bruce wasn't looking – didn't he know Bruce saw _everything_? – so he reluctantly agreed.

"We should ask Superman to come with us," Dick said excitedly, as soon as Bruce acquiesced.

"What? Why?" he asked. Their evening of playing Monopoly had ended without tears or board flipping, but there had been a lot of discussion about absentee landlords and immoral business practices over the course of the night, some of which had felt vaguely pointed.

"To keep you company," Dick said. "I don't want you sitting by the campfire by yourself if Jenny and I go swimming and Andrew and Lucas go for a moonlight stroll or something."

_Moonlight stroll?_

"Who are Andrew and Lucas?" he asked, trying and failing to imagine himself sitting by the light of a roaring fire. He'd be skulking in the shadows, of course, Dick ought to know that.

"Jenny's dads," Dick said. "She has two dads. Kind of like when I thought you and Batman were my two dads. Only for real."

Oh. _Oh_. He hadn't really thought much about what Dick had meant by _family_ when he'd first mentioned the invitation. Maybe a butler and an adorable orphan? Living parents _was_ statistically more likely, he supposed. And now that he thought back to the evening at the Fortress with Superman and the Caped Copyright Infringers, _that_ made more sense too. More sense than two six foot plus superheroes sleeping in bunk beds like they were still at boarding school, anyway. Well, far be it from him to stand in the way of young love. He couldn't really see what a creature of the night would have in common with a sun god, but they'd obviously found something.

"Fine," he said. "But you'll have to call Superman and invite him. And I guess if you're calling Jenny's parents by their first names, you'd better call him Clark."

Just the thought of it made him feel awkward; they'd been strictly capes and codenames for as long as they'd known each other. But if they were going camping with mundanes, Bruce and Clark it would have to be. Family and friendship was a complicated business, but Batman was up for the challenge.

* * *

During a break between training exercises on the Watchtower the next week, Flash recommended cooking as a better exercise for father-son bonding than board games. Well, uncle-nephew in his case, but potayto potahto. He surely knew more than Superman, anyway, who seemed to have some odd new bee in his bonnet about something, and had taken to looking at Bruce very strangely since the camping invitation.

"But why would I need to know how to cook?" Bruce asked. "I have Alfred."

The Flash shook his head. "Think of it like science," he said. "You're good at science."

It was true, Bruce had to admit it. He _was_ good at science.

The truth seemed less self evident when the entire kitchen caught alight, and the halon fire suppressant system kicked in. Dick didn't seem to mind, leaping nimbly through the flames and turning somersaults on the counter among the gas plumes, but Bruce was embarrassed all the same.

"Why would I _need_ to cook?" he asked Alfred plaintively. "I have you."

"I won't always be here, Sir," Alfred said, and he sounded sad. There was no need for it. Bruce would rebuild the kitchen for him, better than it was before.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "Where would you go?"

"Bruce."

"No, seriously," Bruce insisted. "Where would you go? There aren't many openings for butlers in America in 2017."

Alfred sighed, but Bruce was not the World's Greatest Detective for nothing, and he could see a smile curling Alfred's lips.

"It's my fault, Sir," Alfred said. "I should have known that lobster thermidor was far too advanced for a first attempt. Let's start with something simpler. Something I used to eat in the nursery at home when I was a lad."

Operation: Welsh Rarebit was an unmitigated success. It turned out batarangs were even better than microplane graters for cheese, Dick proved a chip off the old block by repurposing a confiscated flamethrower as a blowtorch, and while sorting through Alfred's collection of seventy five mustards, meticulously catalogued by colour and heat level, they reached a mutual epiphany about Condiment King. Flash had been right, cooking was a _great_ bonding exercise. Kicking some culinary themed butt was the only thing that could make it better.

"We'll text from the Batmobile when we're done," Bruce said, as they shucked their aprons and got into costume. "So you know when to fire up the grill."

"Very good, Sir," Alfred said, as he covered the exquisitely fashioned rarebits with a London Bridge printed tea towel. "Give my regards to Colonel Mustard." He had figured it out too! They really were the greatest family in crimefighting. Three generations of awesome. Batman would have to get Flash a muffin basket. With Alfred's help, they could even make it themselves. Score!

* * *

The week of the camping trip rolled round at last, despite Bruce's best attempts to forestall it by volunteering for peacekeeping missions off world. Wonder Woman and Green Lantern assured him they had both Earth and space covered, and then winked at each other when they thought he wasn't looking. He would have to send a memo about professionalism when he got back to the Batcave.

Andrew and Lucas picked them up from Wayne Manor, because they were the only ones with a _mini-van_. Bruce had offered the use of a limo, which could seat six more comfortably, but apparently the roads where they were going were "unsuitable". He called shotgun as soon as the wheeled monstrosity pulled into the drive, prompting Superman – _Clark_ – to roll his eyes dramatically, but if he hadn't trained for years to reduce his reaction time to nothing, that was his own fault.

Dick clambered into the back row of seats with Jenny and immediately started talking nineteen to the dozen about a star war, and a single direction, and various other fragments of what Bruce could only assume was a complicated code to defeat the prying ears of the surveillance state and/or parental supervision. He approved wholeheartedly. Clark folded himself in half and crawled into the middle seat to join an equally tall and cramped blond who was practically glowing in the summer heat. Suckers.

Bruce himself sat down comfortably in the front seat and reached for the centre console to plug in his batpod.

"Don't even think about it," said the man in the driver's seat.

Bruce turned to look at him. The gel in his artfully styled auburn hair was melting, but more importantly he looked even less enthused about the prospect of a week in the wilderness than Bruce felt. Perhaps a peace offering was in order. His meticulously curated playlist could wait for the trip back.

He tapped his fingers against the batpod meaningfully. "This baby gets wi-fi in the _jungle_ ," he said.

For a moment it looked like his grim companion was going to smile, but instead he said sternly, "We're here to spend time with our _families_ , dude."

Bruce sighed.

"Although," the man said, glancing into the rear view mirror, where his partner could clearly be seen chatting with Clark like they'd been best friends forever. "They probably won't notice if we ration ourselves to an hour a day. Just to check twitter."

"There is _no way_ I can read my timeline in an hour," Bruce said, gearing up to negotiate.

"That's why you use lists," the man said. "You do news and politics, I'll do media and fandom, we'll meet in the middle in half the time."

Huh. That did seem like a reasonable use of resources.

"An hour in the morning, an hour at night," he said. "That's my best offer."

"Done," the driver agreed. "I'm Lucas, by the way. That's Andrew." He gestured with his chin, which looked strangely familiar from that angle.

Bruce tilted his head to examine Lucas' artfully stubbled jawline more closely. "I'm Bruce," he said. "That's Clark."

Lucas glanced over at Bruce's own immaculately shaven jaw, then into the rear view again, this time focusing on Clark. He slapped the steering wheel and started laughing.

"What?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, nothing," Lucas said. "So Clark's your partner?"

"Yes," Bruce said. "No. _Work_ partner."

Lucas kept chuckling annoyingly all the way to their destination.

* * *

He and Lucas checked their email quickly while Clark and Andrew put up the tents, and Dick and Jenny built a campfire.

"Your wi-fi password is _C4P WA5 R1GHT_?" Lucas asked, incredulously.

"Shut up and log in," he retorted wittily. "You're wasting time." He'd actually come around a bit to the value of cooperating with legitimate law enforcement since The Incident, but there was still something vaguely attractive about chisel jawed uncompromising boy scouts, though he mostly preferred brunets to blonds.

 _Wait a minute_.

He looked over Lucas' shoulder – he was totally taller than him, even in sneakers – to where Clark and Andrew were blatantly using their eyebeams to light the campfire while pretending to be engrossed in wrestling with the tents.

The kids cheered at their success, oblivious.

He looked back at Lucas, who shrugged. "Don't look at me, man, I'm just a headkicking vigilante with a good eye for maxillofacial bones," he said. "You're the great detective."

"I hate all of you," Bruce said.

"Well, you have a week to get over it," Lucas said. "I've locked you out of your phone, by the way."

Bruce's jaw dropped in outraged admiration. This guy was _sneaky_.

"But just between us," Lucas went on, "One nightstalker to another? Sun god snuggles are pretty nice."

Bruce was ready to argue that bats didn't snuggle, but when he glanced over again, Clark and Andrew were having some kind of race, Dick and Jenny perched on their shoulders and shrieking with laughter. It made him feel funny inside, way down below his ninth ab.

It could be _strategically_ valuable to have the Man of Steel permanently on his side, he supposed. Maybe.

"Let's get dinner ready first," he said nonchalantly. Alfred had packed all sorts of interesting goodies for the fire. "And then we'll talk about moonlight strolls."

At the end of the race course – Clark and Dick had won, of course – Superman spun around to face him, almost shaking Dick off. Stupid super hearing.

Clark smiled.

Dick raised his arms in victory and beamed.

Lucas grinned.

Andrew and Jenny waved back at him.

Bruce found himself smiling too.

Family was a strange thing, especially the way it kept growing when you weren't paying attention, but he was beginning to get the hang of it.


End file.
